The present invention relates to a device for inducing saccadic eye movement in a subject.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is generally characterized by anxiety attacks, sleep disturbances, flashbacks, and other symptoms which relate to a prior traumatic event. PTSD is particularly common to physical and sexual assault victims and war veterans.
Prior treatments for PTSD have included "systematic desensitization" and "flooding". These prior techniques have met with only limited success.
Reference is made to an article entitled "Eye Movement Desensitization: A New Treatment For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" by F. Shapiro. In this article, a new technique for the treatment of PTSD is described in which the patients are instructed to visualize the traumatic event, identify negative thoughts, concentrate on the physical sensations of the anxiety, and visually track the therapist's hand, with index and middle finger raised, while the hand is moved in a back and forth motion. The latter step involves the therapists moving his or her fingers rhythmically along the line of vision of the patient. Before, during, and after such technique, clients are then measured for a self-reported level of anxiety. It has been found that inducement of such saccadic eye movement as described above has been very successful in treating cases of PTSD, and other trauma-based disorders.
Unfortunately, control of the speed and path of the therapist's fingers is difficult to achieve, and a jerky eye movement has a tendency to induce stress in the patient while a rhythmic eye movement produces the opposite result. In addition, application of the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing technique (EMDR) to multiple successive subjects described above tires the therapist's arm and seriously jeopardizes the consistency in the EMDR treatment. Further, the therapist may find it difficult to observe the subject's eye movement while maintaining a smooth rhythmic finger movement.
A device which permits a therapist to easily administer the Eye Movement Desensitization technique would represent a great advance in the medical field.